Case 11: Murder on the Gunness Farm

On an isolated farm just outside LaPorte, Indiana, some unspeakable acts took place in the early 1900s. They remained deep and deadly secrets until a package of love letters was discovered in an immigrant’s cabin in South Dakota—letters that revealed the shockingly murderous intent of a widowed farm wife named Belle Gunness.

Local rumors had it that the Gunness farm, in rural northern Indiana, had a macabre history of misfortune, tragedy, and suicide. But no one expected that all the previous calamities that befell this property would be far overshadowed by the serial murders that took place there at the turn of the twentieth century. The tale of the killings on the Gunness farm is a detective story with many clues and lingering mysteries. It is a story of the loneliness of immigrants to a new country, the lure of riches at a time of agricultural decline, and the deceptiveness of our deepest preconceptions about the capacity of men and of women to commit horrific crimes.

Many mysteries remain in the case of Belle Gunness. In this episode we will follow a trail of clues to discover a series of increasingly disturbing revelations. Who were the immigrant men who eagerly answered lonleyhearts ads in foreign language newspapers only to meet a grim fate instead of a happily married life? Did the gruesome killings on the Gunness farm go unpunished? We’ll unravel a story of evil acts and restless spirits that still cast a shadow on the residents of a small Midwestern farming community.